Re: new to debian have questions
On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 09:47:39PM +0100, Eric E Moore wrote:
> >>>>> "Joost" == Joost Kooij <joost@topaz.mdcc.cx> writes:
>
> Joost> Apt-get is generally much cooler when run as a dselect method.
> Joost> It will save you many pains if you take 30 minutes to learn the
> Joost> principles behind dselect and its slightly weird key
> Joost> assignments (it's still much easier to learn than vi).
>
> Joost> People who tell you to use apt-get directly are generally
> Joost> ill-informed. If you do not understand what dselect does for
> Joost> you, that means that you have to do it yourself if you don't
> Joost> use dselect. Unfortunately, it seems that many people do not
> Joost> understand what dselect is supposed to do.
>
> For the relatively uninitated amongst us, could you spell this out
> quickly. What does dselct do that apt-get doesn't? I remember
> hearing on a list that it doesn't handle suggests and reccomends, is
> there anything else? If so, what? Is this in a FAQ? I checked the
> debian faq and it lists some things dselect can do, but it seems
> apt-get does some too...
Dselect has a "select" mode that lets you manage your package selections
interactively. The advantage of this is that you retain full control
over package selections. Dselect additionally contains logic to help
you resolve dependencies. Dselect will let you decide what you want
on your system. Apt-get is not interactive (it was never meant to be)
and can only "guess" at your intents. This is also why apt-get does not
handle recommends: and suggests:, because you have to judge for yourself
if you want to install a suggested package.
Some would even say that everytime when the package dependencies change,
you need to update in dselect and straighten out your package selections
and consider at a high level if they still make sense. Packages do get
split, renamed or replaced. You should understand what is going on or
you risk not making any sense. This is why dist upgrading is better
done from within dselect.
There is nothing wrong with apt-get proper. I love it, for all it can
do, many things of which I cannot with dselect or dpkg (retrieve package
source, reinstall package that is already installed), although some of
that should imho be integrated back into dpkg/dselect. But there are
also things that apt-get should not be doing on its own, like managing
all the selections of packages that you want installed or not installed
on your system.
When people say that dselect is hard, then I can only say these things:
- dselect is a vital part of the debian package management system.
if you do not understand the system, it makes no sense to ignore it.
Package management concepts may be hard, but you cannot avoid it,
unless you go (back) to slackware;
- vi is hard to learn to use effectively, harder than dselect. It
never stopped me from trying though. Sometimes, "cat" maybe easier
to use than vi. That doesn't make it an alround replacement;
- http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0107/msg00641.html
Cheers,
Joost
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